Facile production of titanium aluminide intermetallic powder for powder metallurgy and metal additive manufacturing

This work presents the intermetallic titanium aluminide (γ-TiAl) powder production via vacuum arc melting (VAM), mechanical crushing (MC), and high-energy ball milling (HEBM). The powder is characterized by morphology, chemical composition, particle size distribution, and phases. The MC and HEBM powder’s chemical composition shows all alloying elements (Ti, Al, Cr, and Nb). MC method picks up a small amount of oxygen (0.23 wt.%) and iron. The MC TiAl powder is irregularly (rod) shaped with a nominal size of 10–200 µm. HEBMed powder shows a nearly spherical and is between ~ 10 and 80 µm (30 min), ~ 5 and 16 µm (60 min), and ~ 1 and 7 µm (90 min), respectively. The XRD results of the powders show the presence of intermetallic compounds, such as γ and α₂ phases. It can be concluded that the MC and HEBM processes are potential techniques for TiAl alloy powder production.